A Year in Europe

by Walter W. Moore

—"Lumena Pax Te Cum Fi"—

The remains, reasonably supposed to be those of one of the early martyrs for the faith, were sealed up and deposited in the treasury of relics in the Lateran; here they remained for some years unthought of. On the return of Pius VII. from France, a Neapolitan prelate was sent to congratulate him. One of the priests in his train, who wished to create a sensation in his district, where the long residence of the French had probably caused some decay of piety, begged for a few relics to carry home, and these recently discovered remains were bestowed on him; the inscription was translated somewhat freely to signify Santa Philomena, rest in peace. Another priest, whose name is suppressed, because of his great humility, was favored by a vision in the broad noonday, in which he beheld the glorious virgin Filomena, who was pleased to reveal to him that she had suffered death for preferring the Christian faith and her vow of chastity to the addresses of the emperor, who wished to make her his wife. This vision leaving much of her history obscure, a certain young artist, whose name is also suppressed, perhaps because of his great humility, was informed in a vision that the emperor alluded to was Diocletian, and at the same time the torments and persecutions suffered by the Christian virgin Filomena, as well as her wonderful constancy, were also revealed to him. There were some difficulties in the way of the Emperor Diocletian, which incline the writer of the historical account to incline to the opinion that the young artist in his wisdom may have made a mistake, and that the emperor may have been not Diocletian, but Maximian. The facts, however, now admitted of no doubt; the relics were carried by the priest Francesco da Lucia to Naples; they were enclosed in a case of wood resembling in form the human body; this figure was habited in a petticoat of white satin, and over it a crimson tunic after the Greek fashion; the face was painted to represent nature, a garland of flowers was placed on the head, and in the hands a lily and a javelin with the point reversed, to express her purity and her martyrdom; then she was laid in a half-sitting posture in a sarcophagus, of which the sides were glass, and, after lying for some time in state in the chapel of the Torres family in the Church of Sant' Angiolo, she was carried in grand procession to Mugnano, a little town about twenty miles from Naples, amid the acclamations of the people, working many and surprising miracles by the way.... Such is the legend of S. Filomena, and such the authority on which she has become within the last twenty years one of the most popular saints in Italy."—Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 671.

But, after all, the most extraordinary case of saint-manufacture is not that of Philomena, but that of Buddha! I have not room for the story here, but if any one wishes to know how the papacy made Buddha a Christian saint, he will find the whole story, with the proofs, in A History of the Warfare of Science and Theology, by Andrew D. White, LL. D., late President and Professor of History at Cornell University, and until recently United States Ambassador to Germany.

"The Courteous Spaniard."

A few days ago we visited the Church of St. Laurence Without the Walls, where in a silver shrine under the high altar, the remains of St. Laurence and St. Stephen are said to rest. The walls of the portico of the church are covered with a series of frescoes, lately repainted. One series represents the story of St. Stephen and that of the translation of his relics to this church. "The relics of St. Stephen were preserved at Constantinople, whither they had been transported from Jerusalem by the Empress Eudoxia, wife of Theodosius II. Hearing that her daughter, Eudoxia, wife of Valentinian II., Emperor of the West, was afflicted with a devil, she begged her to come to Constantinople, that her demon might be driven out by the touch of the relics. The younger Eudoxia wished to comply, but the devil refused to leave her unless St. Stephen was brought to Rome. An agreement was therefore made that the relics of St. Stephen should be exchanged for those of St. Laurence. St. Stephen arrived, and the Empress was immediately relieved of her devil; but when the persons who had brought the relics of St. Stephen from Constantinople were about to take those of St. Laurence back with them, they all fell down dead! Pope Pelagius prayed for their restoration to life, which was granted for a short time, to prove the efficacy of prayer, but they all died again ten days later! Thus the Romans knew that it would be criminal to fulfil their promise, and part with the relics of St. Laurence, and the bodies of the two martyrs were laid in the same sarcophagus." And thus we know how much more the Romans think of relics than of honor and truth. "It is related that when they opened the sarcophagus, and lowered into it the body of St. Stephen, St. Laurence moved on one side, giving the place of honor on the right hand to St. Stephen; hence, the common people of Rome have conferred on St. Laurence the title of 'Il cortese Spagnuolo'—the courteous Spaniard."

Another series of these pictures in the portico represents the story of a sacristan who, coming to pray in this church before day, found it filled with worshippers, and was told by St. Laurence himself that they were the Apostle Peter, the first martyr, Stephen, and other apostles, martyrs and virgins from paradise, and was ordered to go and tell the Pope what he had seen, and bid him come and celebrate a solemn mass. The sacristan objected that the Pope would not believe him, and asked for some visible sign. Then St. Laurence ungirt his robe and gave him his girdle. When the Pope was accompanying him back to the basilica they met a funeral procession. To test the powers of the girdle, the Pope laid it on the bier, and at once the dead arose and walked.

The Miracles of St. Dominic.

That is not the only miracle of resurrection offered to our credulity by these ecclesiastical legends. The three principal frescoes in the chapter house of the church of St. Sisto, recently painted by the Padre Besson, represent three miracles of St. Dominic—in each case of raising from the dead—the subjects being a mason who had fallen from a scaffold when building this monastery, a child, and the young Lord Napoleone Orsini, who had been thrown from his horse and instantly killed, and who was brought to life by St. Dominic on this spot, as is further commemorated by an inscription on the wall. But miracles were nothing uncommon in the history of the founder of the powerful Dominican Order. In the refectory of St. Marco, at Florence, we had seen the fine fresco which represents the miraculous provision made for him and his forty friars at a time of scarcity by two angels. The refectory in which this miracle took place is at the Church of St. Sabina, on the Aventine, in Rome; but there are three other things at this church which interested us hardly less than the scene of that miracle. One of them is the huge, pumpkin-shaped, black stone, two or three times as big as a man's head, which the devil is said to have hurled at St. Dominic one day when he found him lying prostrate in prayer. This stone is the most conspicuous object in the church, being set up on a pillar about three feet high, right in the middle of the nave. Not far away is the marble slab on which the saint was lying at the time that the formidable missile was thrown. The adversary's aim was not good, and the saint was not harmed. The second thing of chief interest here is the Chapel of the Rosary, at the other end of the same aisle in which the marble slab lies, built on the very spot where St. Dominic had the vision in which he received the rosary from the hands of the Virgin. The supernatural gift is commemorated in a beautiful painting by Sassoferato. It is hardly necessary to explain to any of my readers that a rosary is a string of beads used by Roman Catholics to keep the count of the number of Pater-nosters and Ave-Marias which they repeat, and that this manner of "vain repetitions" was first used by the Dominicans among Roman Catholics, though the custom was really borrowed from the Mohammedans and Brahmins, who still use rosaries. The third object is the famous orange tree, now six hundred and seventy years old, which is said to have been brought from Spain and planted in the court here by St. Dominic himself, orange trees having been unknown in Rome before that time, and "which still lives, and is firmly believed to flourish or fail with the fortunes of the Dominican Order." Ladies are not allowed to approach this tree, so, as there were ladies in our party, we all contented ourselves with a look at it through a window. Hard by, of course, there is a room where things are sold to pilgrims and visitors. There we bought a rosary, the beads of which are made of the fruit of the plant called the Thorn of Christ, with the exception of the bead next to the cross, which is a tiny dried orange from St. Dominic's tree. Enclosed in the cross are a little piece of the wood of the tree, and some earth from the catacombs where the bodies of Sts. Peter and Paul, and of the holy virgin martyrs, Sts. Agnes and Cecilia, reposed for some time. The printed leaflet which accompanies our purchase tells us that "these rosaries, when sold or ordered, are blessed and enriched with the indulgences of the Rosary Confraternity and the papal blessing. When blessed they may be distributed; but if resold they lose all the indulgences." (Italics ours.)

Still another relic of great interest in this convent of St. Sabina is the crucifix of Michele Ghislieri (afterwards Pope Pius V.). "One day, as Ghislieri was about to kiss his crucifix, in the eagerness of prayer, the image of Christ, says the legend, retired of its own accord from his touch, for it had been poisoned by an enemy, and a kiss would have been death."

Sundry Miracles by Other Saints, and Images.